Serial armed robbers strike in the Northeast

A group of seri­al armed rob­bers has been strik­ing fear in­to mer­chants in far-reach­ing sec­tions of the city, in­clud­ing the North­east, ac­cord­ing to Phil­adelphia po­lice, who seek the pub­lic's help in identi­fy­ing the ban­dits.

As many as four men have been in­volved in at least one of a half-dozen heists between April 29 and May 24 in the North­east, North and West areas of the city.

De­tect­ives have sur­veil­lance video of two men who robbed the 7-El­ev­en at 9901 Frank­ford Ave. in Mor­rell Park on May 18. The rob­bers entered the store at 4:14 a.m. with guns drawn and im­me­di­ately forced a clerk to empty cash re­gisters. The crooks grabbed $300 cash as well as a car­ton of ci­gar­ettes, then fled in an un­known dir­ec­tion.

Six days later, po­lice say, one of the men used sim­il­ar tac­tics to rob the 7-El­ev­en at 7901 Frank­ford Ave. in Holmes­burg. Sur­veil­lance cam­er­as filmed that in­cid­ent, too. The rob­ber entered the store alone, poin­ted a hand­gun at a clerk and de­man­ded money. He made off with an un­dis­closed amount of cash and ran south­bound on Frank­ford Av­en­ue.

Also on May 24, four men — in­clud­ing two of the same sus­pects — robbed Forman Mills on the 4800 block of Mar­ket St. in West Philly, po­lice said. The three oth­er cases all in­volved the same two men that com­mit­ted the May 18 heist. The loc­a­tions were Dol­lar Gen­er­al at 2815 Ridge Ave. in Straw­berry Man­sion on April 29, Little Caesar's at 5901 Lan­caster Ave. in Over­brook on May 15 and Dol­lar Gen­er­al at 801 N. 48th St. in West Philly on May 22.

The lone rob­ber of the Holmes­burg 7-El­ev­en was de­scribed as black man with a dark com­plex­ion, early to mid-20s, 6 feet tall, thin build with a thin mous­tache. He wore dark gloves, a dark hooded sweat­shirt and dark pants. In the Mor­rell Park case, the same rob­ber wore a black mask and jeans. His part­ner in the Mor­rell Park case was a His­pan­ic man in his early 20s, with a black jack­et, red bandanna over his face, jeans and gloves.

To re­port in­form­a­tion about the rob­ber­ies, call 215-686-TIPS or text to PPD TIP. To re­port the im­me­di­ate loc­a­tion of the sus­pects or a po­lice emer­gency, call 911. ••